Collard Greens and Arugula

You're gonna be able to have your tarot cards read in front of Ferguson's General Store before too long, and this bodes either ill or well, depending on your perspective. You buy chicken wire at Ferguson's, or five gallons of hydraulic oil, or a pound of nails. The old-timers loaf around on the benches outside, and after discussing the weather with them, you go inside and get biscuits and gravy (people still eat biscuits at Ferguson's.) You can smoke a cigarette while you finish your coffee.
Then I see J* walking in with a basket full of homemade soap - an attempt at that lucrative tourist dollar more effective and more telling than the last attempt: the rack of postcards next to the check-out counter. More and more tourists are travelling the roads around Ferguson's these days, and more and more city folks are buying the old farmsteads back in the hollers. And they don't buy chicken wire. They buy home-made soaps and quilts and croissants.
We'll be seeing hand-made pottery in there before too long - on the same shelf as the pipe wrenches. The crystals will be next to the horse-shoe nails. The incense will be next to the starter fluid.
The populace is in transition, but there's no telling in what direction it may actually go. A business plan for an organic farm sometimes seems deceptively easy. You lean in whatever direction the smell of patchouli comes from. I used to think I hadn't hedged my bets very well. Then I found out that S**'s wife loves my salad mix. I bring her some whenever I can. She just pours bacon grease over it and serves it with corn bread.
Maybe I can sell some to the General Store someday. They can put in on the shelf next to the Willie Ferguson tapes. Willie used to live in an old school bus across the road from the store. He'd drink and play fiddle tunes. I used to drink with him, sometimes. He'd never ask me where I was from. He'd just pass the bottle and play another tune. Willie's dead now. After a few years, they hauled his old school bus off down the road somewhere.

The Nature of My Game

We gave the devil a run for his money the other night, and we didn't even have to sacrifice any cats.
The hot peppers are as eager to breed as a bunch of drunken sailors, and are pumping out fruit in desperate attempt to spread their seed before frost sets. This gives me enough hot peppers to scorch the palettes of Bombay, Bangkok and Buenes Aires combined, and necessitated a hot sauce making party. (I knew we'd find a use for the three hundred empty baby food jars under the sink.)
All present started with a hotter-the-better, let's make something the devil himself couldn't eat mentality, quickly bored of that, and finished the evening by exploring the subtle range of flavors with-in the Scoville unit. Jalepeno salsa, mango hot sauce, honey-roasted cayenne sauce, and an interesting concoction that included take-out katchup from the diner are some of the more interesting results. The real fun came in making labels for the baby food jars, and making up names for the sauces. My intern, C*, came up with the best: 6 Six Sauce, featuring an illustration of a fire-breathing skull.
Friends interning on a farm on the other side of the county were also present, and used the opportunity, as they often do, to vent about their employers. My policy in such situations is that you are not allowed to complain unless you make me laugh while doing so, and we all ended up rolling on the floor amid the pepper detritus. Intern/farmer dynamics are an interesting part of the business - sometimes the most challanging part.
Most of the folks doing what we do are trying to stay out of the rat race, or "real world", whatever that is. And we end up creating a rat race of our own making, cloaked in the latest alternative buzz-words. Attempts to keep the business on a friendly, family-farm basis conflict head-on with the necesity of keeping the bills paid. Personality conflicts don't present themselves when things are going well- they rear their ugly heads when things are most difficult and no one is focused on people skills. And all the while you know that everyone would get along just fine in other circumstances. Yet your dream of an idyllic oasis in the mountains, of a healthy, nurturing slice of land used to feed other people and yourself, looks more and more like corporate cubicles, or, worse, you feel more and more like you're managing a bunch of teen-agers at Burger King. You lose patience at the sound of your neighbors weed-eater, or at the tourists gawking at the leaves. You resent people with more money than you, and pity the percieved lethergy of people with less than you. The devil of the "real world" introduces himself on a daily basis, but you deny his existance because your vegetables are organic. You fancy yourself to be an involved member of a thriving, conscious community, and forget to tell your friends that you buy your socks at Wal-Mart.
My reality checks come on a daily basis: when I'm lighting a cigarette, or when I'm sticking the nozzle, once again, into the gas tank. In myriad ways I'm very much a part of the society I hold in such contempt. And yet, in the same way that I continued to care for my tomatoes even after late blight had set in, I continue to care for myself and the people around me despite the blotches on our leaves. The devil is responsible for late blight. I don't doubt that for a minute. But I keep trellising and I keep pruning. I snip away infected leaves and expect fruit set. I let people stay on my farm; I let people keep stuff on my farm; I put up with other people's cats; and I get pissed off when people have opinions different from mine. I wake every morning expecting the day to be perfect, and find myself not having a clue as to why it wasn't.
I listen to my intern friends vent about their employers; plenty of people find time for me when I vent. Maybe the sauce is hot enough to burn away their animosity and reveal what I believe lies underneath: the beauty of the human condition, warts and all.

Farmer's Market

It is not alone for the convenience of the customer that ambulatory vendors exist. Merchants of this type can survive with a modicum of capitol. They pay no rent, and the outlay for the merchandise they sell or the services they render is pitifully small.
Gideon Sjoberg
The Preindustrial City

I got myself to market with surprising efficiency Saturday morning, considering the hour at which I finally went to bed and the number of times I hit the snooze button the next morning. But get to market I did - was the first farmer there, as a matter of fact. Alone in a parking lot in Asheville, the sun not yet even playing with the eastern horizon, but the city busses already rolling under the street lamps and the bums panhandling me for loose change. There's a pleasant stillness to any city at that hour, the busses and winos notwithstanding. There's a quiet and a freshness that envelopes you and placifies you and leaves you wondering if it really is market day after all, or if you've finally gone out and done it and showed up a day early or a day late.
I started to set my stand up after listening to the sad details of Melvin's life and giving him two dollars toward a bottle of wine. A* showed up a few minutes later, and a few minutes after that, B*, our leader, mentor and sage, confirming that it was, in fact, market day.
We bantered with each other until our coffee buzzes eased, then worked to put the finishing touches on our portable little stands. Farmer banter in the wee small hours is predictable: rain, bugs, broken equipment, new equipment, and who was the most annoying customer from last week. The jokes are a little off-color until the female farmers arrive, and then they get downright rude. We borrow extra baskets from each other, or extra tablecloths or extra string. Bakers and soap makers and bee hive keepers and evil goat cheese makers show up and set up, and we're a market again. One more basket gets borrowed, a customer shows up, more coffee gets drunk, and we're a market again. I bag, weigh, and sell vegetables, and we're a - well, you get the idea.
The early bird gets the freshest stuff in this business, and our regular, die hard customers know to get to the market just when we open. There are people I've been selling to for years and don't know their names; people I've developed solid and rewarding friendships with; people I've gone through personal hardships with; and children who were conceived, born and raised during the time I've known their parents at market. They come fast and furious for the first hour, and in the cool dawn air you can jump to keep up with it all and not break a sweat. The sun climbs in the sky, the customer flow slows, and you work to primp and freshen what you've got left on your table. More coffee gets drunk and the customers come in smaller and smaller waves. The morning climbs into noon. We have time for more farmer banter, by now usually centering on cute things that the kids have done, cute things that animals have done, how the squash or the lettuce or the arugula is doing, and cute things that the kids have done. The last customers of the day drift in, pick up something off a table, and look around for someone to pay because the farmer is usually on the other side of the parking lot talking about cute things that the kids have done.
We break down around one in the afternoon - the morning ends with the morning ritual being done in reverse. Baskets are returned, trucks are loaded, and personal energy dissipates. We fire the trucks up and go home.
We'll do it all over again next week.

Sticks and Weeds

What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.
-Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness.

Here's what happened to me the other day, when I was supposed to be posting my first entry as rm's guest blogger.
I was awakened a little past seven by the gravel crunch of a thirty year old Ford Bronco coming up the road: my neighbor, S** (he gets two asterisks.) He's an eighty-three year old ex-well driller, tobacco farmer, and all around eccentric. His truck wasn't running, and he wasn't happy.
"Rat chewed through my fuel line, son. Chewed right through it. What do you think about that?"
I fish some old fuel line out of the barn, throw some wrenches into the truck, and follow S** back over to his place. S** has been eager to pick up fallen branches since the what was left of a hurricane swept through last week, and that pesky rat had brought him to a dead standstill. And S** doesn't like to stand still. I replace his fuel line, fix his emergency brake, and adjust his carburetor, because I know that it's the only way I'm going to be able to get back to my life.
Those fallen branches were the furthest thing from my mind, personally. The what used to be a hurricane had put them there for a reason, and I tend to question other people's desire to screw around with what God has wrought.
Screwing around with what God has wrought, however, is sometimes easier than arguing with an eighty-three year old ex-well driller, tobacco farmer, and all around eccentric. Take it from one who aspires to be just that, someday. So I fixed his stuff and helped him pick up his branches.
What I really wanted to do on that glorious first day of autumn was to disk the living hell out of my fields. Grind up every weed, big, small and tenacious, grind them right down to their constituent hydro-carbons, and then go back in a few days later and plant rye. I'd then have nothing to do all winter but look out my window and that glorious, green, glimmering cover crop - rye all the way up to the edge of the mountain and not a weed in sight.
So there you have it: one man picks up sticks and another grinds up weeds - puny, pathetic attempts to hold back the onslaught of nature and make the land do what we want it to. Pathetic it is, nonsensical and moronic, but it what we do because we can't figure out any other way to make a living. The fields look good, though - weedless, tidy. A clean slate. The top few inches of soil is loose and airy, ready for me to do what I please.
I haven't talked to S** since that morning. But I have a feeling he's feeling pretty good right now, too. He's got his downed branches picked up and put down in a burn pile. He's road can be driven on, his fields can be walked across -some sense of order has been restored. The goats may be stubborn, the weeds may grow, and the winds of what used to be a hurricane may wrap around and hit us again from the backside, but we have, for one more day, managed to prolong the illusion that we know what we're doing, and that somehow we're doing it, and doing it right.
Sleep well, S**. Don't let the sticks get in your way. Pick the bastards up.

Substitution Revisited

I promise I'll get the hang of this shit. Hit ENTER as little as possible, is what I'm learning.
Whilst yours truly pinch-hits in this hallowed space, my sister pinch-hits with rm farm chores and had become inheritor of all goat oriented headaches with which readers of the space are all too well acquianted. She reports a certain substitute teacher mentality among the goats - they test boundaries, forget rules, and generally make the same nuicences of themselves that you and I did when the third grade grammer teacher stayed home with the sniffles. My sister reports she has already determined which goats are likely candidates for the next goat roast.
Nevertheless, the week promises to be an exercise in vocabulary building for her two year old son. He's down already with "horse", though it comes out more like "house", is pretty good with "bee", though it seems to represent any small, exoskelatoned creature, and learned, on a previous house sitting gig, "llama", mastering the double L with ease. The rm menagerie offers amble opportunity for building word power.

Substitution

Howdy friends.
As most of you have no doubt been informed by now, rm, your ever vigilent hostess, is hiatusing this week, and has asked yours truly to pinch-hit. And I will do so, to the best of my ablity providing the anecdotes and colorful snippets of Madison County daily life upon which you have all come to rely.
By way of introducing myself, I am rm's neighbor, a grower of vegetables, a consumer of elicit goat cheese, and an all-round bon vivant. That not with-standing, and, perhaps, not even being true, I will resist any further temptation to go on and on about myself, for we have all week to get to know each other.

Migraine

Migraine today....bleh. I'm not surprised, really; it seems to be a normal reaction to stress for me. Can I have a different normal reaction, please?

I've invited my friend and neighbor and fellow farmer F* to be a guest blogger while I'm gone for ten days. I should warn y'all, though---he thought I said guest logger. I think we've got that cleared up now, though.

The Weekend from Hell (But with Lots of Good Parts)

Yes, it really was the weekend from hell, but it's over.

In spite of an incredibly frustrating and stressful day of baking Friday, the cake was beautiful and delicious. It had rather a lot of icing, especially that pieced-together middle layer, which was basically formed out of icing with some embedded cake chunks, but it looked good. DH says I've got a career in sheetrock if I want it. I hope I'll be able to get some pictures to post (are you reading this KN?).

The weather decided at the last minute to cooperate; it sounds like the poor bride was a wreck during all the downpour, wind and flooding Friday, but Saturday was the most gorgeous day we've seen this summer. So the wedding was fine; it's just that they're such hard work. I was able to get out of there relatively early (some of my coworkers didn't leave until 2am), but getting up the next morning to do breakfast required a whole lot of willpower. I don't really remember driving home after breakfast; I do remember deciding to take a nap. Intentionally. Which has happened, like, twice in my adult life. Normally I hate naps with an irrational passion, but this one was delicious; I can almost understand the nap thing now.

After my nap and a hot bath and a cup of Barry's I was feeling remarkably human, which was good, as it was time to go to a prenatal with my friend D* at her house, followed by a blessingway in which I was an instrumental part. The prenatal was very much fun---I actually can't think of many things I would rather do than hang out with pregnant ladies---and I got to play with the Doppler. Palpating D*'s belly was great: the baby seemed really playful and responsive. This was the first time I really got a feeling for this baby's personality---I can't wait to meet her! (Or him.)

The blessingway was beautiful and moving. I felt ill prepared for my part of it---like I just couldn't focus on it beforehand at all, which makes me a little sad, because I love doing blessingways, and I love D*, and I felt like I wasn't able to give her my best. But the cool thing about rituals and community is that they are organic things---they grow and take shape of their own accord, and this was no exception. A* and C* really made this one happen, and it was beautiful. A* made a book using pages that we all made: it was unbelievable, and definately the centerpiece of the evening, and C* organized an intricate and beautiful henna painting on D*'s belly. And there was lots of food, of course; it really was a wonderful evening.

I was, however, awfully glad to get home. But due to all the tea I drank all afternoon I could not go to sleep, and I was awake at 4am , and finally got out of bed at 5. I've got a hot cup of tea, and a load of laundry going, and I've cleaned up the living room, and now I've got to leave to go cook breakfast!

Boy is that beach gonna feel good.

Church Sign

Thanks PST

Strange and Frustrating Day

What a strange and frustrating day! My cakes are not working very well at all. Barometric pressure? Humidity? The wrong pans? The first 12" square cake overflowed and burned on the borttom of the oven, filling the house with noxious smoke. The cake itself was a horrible, coarse texture, with a big undercooked place on one side. That became property of DH and the girls. And oh, alright, I ate some, too. OK, fine; I ate a lot.

The rest of the day has pretty much gone the same way. The latest is that the middle layer, which is supposed to be a ten inch cake, is needing to be pieced together with icing as glue. Jeez!

The weather has commanded center stage for the last twenty-four hours. Hot Springs has had some serious flooding, and the wind here last night was scary! We woke this morning to the sound of a big tree crashing down up behind the house somewhere; there was another one a couple of hours later. It'll be interesting to see the condition of the road tomorrow; I am dreading delivering this cake, especially since that will just mark the beginning of my day. What in the world was I thinking agreeing to work this wedding? And cooking breakfast the next morning, too? Am I stupid?

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

Ivan's here! We've had some pretty huge gusts---DH estimates 50 to 60 mph. All the windows are closed, because it's coming from every direction and blowing pictures off the walls, and soaking anything that's near a window; now it's hot in this house.

My frosting's all made. What's the chance that there's even going to be a wedding? Tonight I will get everything ready for baking in the morning, especially the odious chore of separating millions and millions of eggs. Actually only six dozen or so. I hope I have power tomorrow!

Asheville Floods

I love Ray's Weather Center. He started in Boone, and now covers several Western North Carolina towns, including Asheville. Here's what he has to say about the recent flooding in Asheville:

Some Historical Flood Information For Asheville

Lastweek’s flood event ranked among the top flood events in Asheville’s
history.The flood stage along the French Broad River ranked as the 4th highest
last week, reaching just under 15 feet. The flood of record for Asheville along
the French Broad is 23.1 feet back on July 16, 1916. Along the Swannanoa River,
it was the second highest flood stage ever, or just over 19 feet. The record
flood for the Swannanoa River at Asheville is 20.7 feet, also occurring during
the 1916 flood on July 16. Interestingly, the 1916 flood was produced when
two hurricanes affected the southern mountains within one week of each other!
It’s an interesting parallel between the 1916 flood and the situation that we face
this week.

---

We are all holding our breath, waiting to see what Ivan is going to do up here. DH was in Asheville yesterday, and it sounds like the atmosphere of the town was crazy---people hitting the grocery stores and hardware stores hard, in a frenzy of preparedness buying. But what do you buy to prepare for a flood? I guess people were buying huge amounts of bottled water, for one thing. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for everybody.

Spirals

Baby's Ear Shell

Hurricane Ivan

Fitting It All In

Well, after a meeting with DH this morning, I can honestly say money is going to be fine; we're in the black. However. We have three weeks of activities to fit into the next seven days, and I wish I was kidding. Between the two of us, plus the two girls, our family's schedule could get really hairy this next week.

DH has gone to pick up our car at the mechanic's, where it's been for the last almost a week, and then he's taking it to a muffler shop; it will be very, very good to be a two car family again. After that he's going to meet my dad in Biltmore Village, the site of some intense flooding last week, and look at some flood-repair- type-work, which Dad would rather not begin until Ivan's done with us, understandably. It's looking like the plan is for Ivan to miss St. George Island, come ashore around Mobile, and then stall out over the North Carolina mountains. For like, three or four days. Which will occur during the wedding for which I'm baking the cake, and serving. One hundred and ten guests. Outside. I bet the poor bride is a little stressed right now, too!

So DH needs to be in several places across two counties every day during all this, too, and the girls? Who knows! Up at six to come to the Inn with me to cook breakfast? Sure! Why not! OK, I'm losing it. Deeep breath, rm.

In a weird sort of way, I actually kind of thrive on this kind of stress; I much prefer schedule stress to money stress. And waiting at the end of it is ten blissed out days on the beach, which helps enormously.

Obviously Nothing to Post About

It really feels like fall today---sunny and dry and breezy. It's gorgeous. I guess I should really go outside and be productive. You know, like wash clothes or mow grass, or something. Well, if I thought I could stand up, I would.

The path of Mr. Ivan seems to be inching ever further west; looks like they're currently predicting landfall to be somewhere between Gulfport, MS and Mobile, AL. Maybe he'll just peter out somewhere out there in the gulf, and not cause anybody any trouble. You think?

ED is making great progress with Blossom; when I got home from work she was riding her around the yard. Blossom is doing really well, and doesn't seem to be testing ED quite so much. She's so pretty under saddle with that cresty Morgan neck, and her shiny, dappled bay self.

A* and her little one stopped by the Inn this morning while I was working, which made my morning. A* is having some computer issues, which is why she hasn't updated Littlebear Holler lately. How frustrating for her. It was great to be able to give her my page for D*'s blessingway book, and I wasn't even the last to turn it in! Good job, rm!

Breakfast, Hurricanes, Mermaids

It looks like Ivan may be going a little more west, towards Alabama, Mississippi, or even Louisiana. Yikes for those folks, cautious sigh of relief for St. George Island! I'm not getting cocky, though---it's a little ways off, yet.

I'm listening to Jimmy Buffett and some vintage Calypso; got a load of laundry going; am working on the page I'm doing for D*'s blessingway. A* so graciously gave us some extra time, but once again I'm feeling like the weak link. I've got a bit of a mermaid theme going.

I did breakfast this morning, and will do it again tomorrow. Just had four people this morning. That's like cooking for my own family, not that I ever cook breakfast for my own peeps. It's more of a do-it-yourself affair around here. But anyway, I only have four again tomorrow, which is lovely.

Blossom, Work and Ivan

I am completely groggy after cooking breakfast at the Inn this morning. Maybe I should take a walk? Or do some more deep cleaning? Or lie down on the couch with a book? Hmmm......

We killed a couple of young chickens yesterday, and DH cooked them on the grill; unfortunately they got a little too smoky for my taste. But fortunately they're smelling real good in that pot of soup I've got on the stove. It's been so blasted cold at night that soup is perfect for supper.

ED rode Blossom alone yesterday, a first. It was tremendously exciting for her, and wonderful to watch. Blossom has a tendency to be a brat; she threw my friend DN when we went to look at her! DN claims that about the time she hit the ground I turned to the man beside me and said,"I'll take her." It didn't go exactly like that; it was actually her sweet trot that I first fell in love with, causing me to sort of ignore her somewhat less- than- sweet attitude about being ridden. So anyway, she has required a fairly experienced rider, which I mostly enjoy and find challenging, but there's been no way I would let the girls (or almost anybody else, for that matter) on her alone. But suddenly ED has emerged as a young woman with a great deal of self-confidence, especially around the animals, and she is doing just great on Blossom. How exciting!

I have a crazy work-week ahead of me; I am trying not to get too stressed. (Me? Stressed?) Three breakfasts, a biggish wedding cake, and I told MH I'd work the wedding itself, too. And then the day after that I start another three-breakfast-cycle. And then the next day we leave for the beach! Assuming there's a beach left after Ivan goes directly over St. George Island, which, right now, is what they're predicting he's going to do. Come on, Ivan! Texas needs rain way worse than we do! And it's not like they've had their fair share of hurricanes this year, unlike Florida! Pleeeease don't smash St. George.

My Tale of Woe

DH and I went to bed fighting about money last night; isn't it true that money is the subject most likely to be argued about by married couples? Anyway, it has sort of turned out that it wasn't exactly money that was the problem; or to be more specific, money is a problem, but there are some underlying stressors that turned a little normal money bickering into a big fight. I tossed and turned all night, and finally kind of figured it out this morning in the bathtub.

Let me tell you a little about my landlord.

We moved into this place in November 1999, after some rather lengthy negotiations with Ron McGinnis, who lives in Virginia Beach. The complicating part of the negotiations was that he had promised the farm to at least two other people (that I know of for sure) at the same time he promised it to us. And the guy who was living here was not aware that he was about to not to be living here! Now, just to let you know our level of desperation, we had been living in a camper in the Hot Springs campground, all four of us, for over a year. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and we hadn't been able to find a place to rent in all that time. We knew we wanted a farm; we already had a flock of chickens in the campground, and had even bought our first two goats---Tallulah, and a wether named Freddie---though they were still at the farm from which we bought them. So we were really, really ready for a place to live. OK. So this guy Ron is telling me on the phone, "oh yeah, it's yours." There were a few problems with the place. One was the herd of Angus cattle that Ron was keeping here as a way to keep the property from getting overgrown, and as a tax write-off. This herd had grown to forty-something cows by this time; some had died of starvation the previous winter; they were beginning to become heavily inbred; and the farm looked like a war zone. There was no grass, only multiflora rose and horse nettles. None of the wildflowers that you usually see in these mountains grew here any longer. It was just barren dirt with scattered cowpies. The fencing was in a state of complete disrepair, with the result that the neighbors were always having to deal with cows in their yards and gardens. The neighbors had been very patient, but were starting to get frustrated, of course. When we paid our first month's rent---$250---it was with the understanding that Ron would have gotten rid of the cows by the time we moved in.

Well, we moved in, like I said, in November, on a cold and sleety day. There were no appliances of any kind; we bought a refrigerator and a wood cookstove. The house was incredibly filthy, so we washed walls and floors, tore old, ugly, dirty wallpaper off the walls, carted absurd amounts of junk out of the house, and just generally tried to make it livable. The cows had been in the house---there was no doorknob on the front door, so they would just push the door open and come in---and they had pushed glass out of windows. They would still occasionally try to get to our houseplants through the windows after we moved in! And not only did Ron not sell the cows and get them out of here, he paid a psychotic local guy to bring hay to them a couple of times a week, and to feed them at the house! Instead of, say, somewhere else on this eighty-five acres! And he had made these arrangements while telling us that the cows were on their way out, the deceitful, lying creep.

That maybe should've been our first clue. Or second, maybe.

Now I won't bore you, dear reader, with too many details. Let me just say that the last five years have involved some craziness, such as:

--being evicted
--being made caretakers of the farm, and not having to pay rent
--being requested to pay rent again
--putting a fair amount of time, money, and energy into fencing the cows out of the yard and garden, only to have Ron sell the cows almost immediately afterwards
--Ron borrowing money from us, telling us to just take it off the next month's rent, and then denying it ever happened
--Ron saying he's going to turn the place into a resort, and actually selling shares on the internet, when his house up on the mountain above us is about to fall down, and the driveway is impassable
--Ron calling us up and saying he needs money, and could we pay the rent a year in advance (for a significant discount)

...And so on.

So the latest is that he wants to raise the rent, and we would still be responsible for doing and paying for all repairs and maintenance. And he doesn't want the horses running loose, because they're the reason his house is so messed up, which, by the way, is patently and obviously untrue---his house is so messed up because it's falling down from lack of care for many years. (The man's an idiot. Seriously.) And it looks like he's going to begin logging the place very soon; the loggers were up here yesterday looking at it. That's going to be pretty for his resort!

I think I can safely say that this is what was underlying our fight last night. We have to move! And we haven't wanted to move to another rental place, preferring to wait until we found a place to buy. I think last night I was having this image of getting back from the beach and being homeless; the four of us, plus two horses, two cows, nine goats, four sheep, five geese, who knows how many chickens, two dogs, and somewhere between five and eight cats. (Hopefully closer to five.) No problem! Maybe an apartment in Hot Springs?

Actually, though, the realization I came to in the bathtub this morning is that we'll be here until spring. Where to then? Who knows! But we've got plenty of time to figure it out, and we always land on our feet. And, as you can probably tell, we've needed to move out ever since we moved in, so it'll really be a good thing.

Goldfinches

The thistles are blooming and setting seeds; our sloppy farming leaves plenty for the Goldfinches, who are wonderfully present right now. This is when they start their families, now that their favorite food is abundant.

Found this Mary Oliver poem this morning:

Goldfinches

In the fields

we let them have---

in the fields

we don't want yet---

where thistles rise

out of the marshlands of spring, and spring open---

each bud

a settlement of riches---

a coin of reddish fire---

the finches

wait for midsummer,

for the long days,

for the brass heat,

for the seeds to begin to form in the hardening thistles,

dazzling as the teeth of mice,

but black,

filling the face of every flower.

Then they drop from the sky.

A buttery gold,

they swing on the thistles, they gather

the silvery down, they carry it

in their finchy beaks

to the edges of the fields,

to the trees,

as though their minds were on fire

with the flower of one perfect idea---

and there they build their nests

and lay their pale-blue eggs,

every year,

and every year

the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches,

in the silver baskets,

and love the world.

Is it necessary to say any more?

Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?

Have you ever been so happy in your life?

Mary Oliver

Walmart Wines

This came on the Artisan Cheesemaker's list this morning:

PRESS RELEASE Subject: Walmart Wine BENTONVILLE, ARK (AP) -- Some Walmart customers soon will be able to sample a new discount item: Walmart's own brand of wine. The world's largest retail chain is teaming up with E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto,California, to produce the spirits at an affordable price, in the $2-5 range. While wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to throw a bottle of Walmart brand wine into their shopping carts, there is a market for cheap wine, said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. She said: "The right name is important."

So, here we go: The top 12 suggested names for Walmart Wine:

12. Chateau Traileur Parc
11. White Trashfindel
10. Big Red Gulp
9. Grape Expectations
8. Domaine Wal-Mart "Merde du Pays"
7. NASCARbernet
6. Chef Boyardeaux
5. Peanut Noir
4. Chateau des Moines
3. I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar!
2. World Championship Riesling

And the number 1 name for Wal-Mart Wine .
1. Nasti Spumante

Another favorite was "Sam's Shiraz."

The beauty of Wal-Mart wine is that it can be served with white meat (opossum) AND red meat (squirrel).

Too Much Rain

We're having a steady, heavy rain. I don't know where it's coming from, because all day none of the radar maps have shown us as having any significant rainfall, and yet it's been raining more on than off all afternoon. Dad's store in Asheville is flooded, I just heard. M* and P* are stuck on the other side of the river by flood waters, and M* said the river's not due to crest until tomorrow.

And it's so dark! It's felt like evening all day; yesterday, too.

Nothing exciting going on other than all that. Mom's casting a jaundiced eye at Ivan---surely he won't hit Orlando. Three major hurricanes in a month? Come on---don't be silly.

M* and I sort of decided that maybe we'd go ahead and get hurricane insurance on our beach house. Like she said, back in February when we rented it, hurricanes were the last thing on our minds. But they seem a little less remote to us now.

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Wine and Whining

I posted from the Inn this morning, but the computer got weird, and I see now that my post is gone. Alas. Oh well---I didn't have anything much to say.

Got home to a big production in the kitchen: DH was racking off the two 5 gallon carboys of elderberry/blackberry wine, and he had strained the mead and put it in a 3 gallon carboy. The kitchen is redolent with fruit, yeast, and alcohol, and DH is now passed out on the couch. Hmm. Just a power nap, I'm sure.

Yesterday I was overcome with the urge to do a bit of deep cleaning, and since this is a rare and infrequent urge, I tried to roll with it. So now the house is turned upside down; all the curtains are washed and hanging on the line in a driving rain; books and cd's are stacked everywhere, because the shelves that they belong on are also out in the rain; and there are piles of (thankfully clean and dry) laundry all over the place waiting to be folded and put away. It's so dark outside that it feels like morning never quite happened, and the house smells like a bar. Ick.

But, on a brighter note...

I've got a turkey breast to roast for this evening; I picked up a movie on my way home from work; and I made good money today. DH has some good music playing: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters. And, oh yeah! I like rainy days!
So I guess I'll quit whining.

A View of the Farm

Money, Mead, and Marvelous Weather

I awoke in a state of anxiety this morning, I guess about money, and things that I need to get done. I went for a walk, which helped a little, but now I' m feeling short of breath and stressed again. I'm thinking that maybe mowing the grass will help! This may be the only day this week that I'll be able to; the rest of the week is looking very wet. Laundry is another project I must work on today; not having a dryer, I'm at the mercy of the weather.

We spent the afternoon in Asheville yesterday, which was kind of fun, but probably the source of my money stress. There's just never enough, and I'm tired of always scrambling. Actually, it's not exactly accurate to say that there's never enough; there's always just enough, and it seems like no matter what we want to do, we can always come up with the money to do it. It's that we never have any savings---I'd like to have just a little more than we need! Seems a little silly to be complaining about having what we need, doesn't it?

The air is so dry and crisp and breezy this morning---cool, too. After the last several grey, hazy, sticky days we've had, this is heaven.

The mead is still smelling wonderful. The reason we went to Asheville yesterday was to buy the rest of the honey we needed for it, and last night I boiled it with water, left it to cool overnight, and today I'll pour the honey water in a three gallon glass carboy, along with the fruit and honey and yeast mixture that I'll strain first. I'm so excited about having mead this winter!

Bunk Beds, Dilly Beans, and Frances

Another grey day, and kind of warm and humid. Though now, as it's growing dark, it's cooling off dramatically; last night we were so cold! I don't know what the temperature was, I just know that the wind blowing in the window (which has been open since Moe's been gone) over my computer desk was cool enough to make me want a blanket! Though not quite cool enough to make me actually stand up and go get one.

Back in June I ordered a quilt from Domestications; it was backordered forever and finally came yesterday. It's all cotton, and looks like it's pieced together from squares of faded hawaiian shirts in blues and greens---I love it! I'm glad I ordered it back at the beginning of the summer, because I wouldn't have been able to afford it now, even though it was not very expensive. It's so nice to buy something pretty for the house; seems like it's usually so hard to justify---the farm and the girls get most of the financial attention. Speaking of the girls, when they saw my new quilt they got very excited about getting new quilts themselves! Right now the girls share a double bed, but they're really too big to share a bed any longer. Plus their bedroom is tiny, so DH and I have been thinking about getting them a set of bunk beds. Well both of the girls are earth signs---Virgo and Capricorn---and they both are highly resistant to change (that's actually an understatement); so bed discussions have been a little rocky. (Involving tears, stomping, and cries of,"You never care what we want!" Oh the drama.) But I guess we've been talking about it long enough (like, a year) that they've gotten used to the idea, and the idea of a big new bedding purchase really capped it off. Now they can't wait! So when we get back from the beach in October we're going to be bed shopping.

The girls picked a laundry basket of green beans tonight; they love them so much that they're willing to do the picking! I don't mind sitting on my rearend and snapping beans---I can even do it while reading blogs! (In my defense, however, I usually do it sitting at the kitchen table.) I'm canning a few more jars of dilly beans tonight, too.

So Mom is down in Orlando bracing herself for Frances, who it looks like is simmering down a little. (Frances, I mean. Definitely not Mom.) I call every day, and always get a case of "contact jitters"---Mom's (understandably) a wreck. She was still a mess (in every sense of the word) from Charley!

Chain Letter Rant

I am so tired of e-mail chain letters. I consider them one of the lowest, most unintelligent forms of communication to have come out of these modern times. They are often full of inaccuracies at best, and outright lies at worst. Did y'all get the one about John Kerry's favorite bible verse being John 16:3? I looked that one up on Break the Chain, and found that the same one is being passed around about Bush! While there are plenty of these character assasination letters about Bush, the vast majority (more than 3-1) are about Kerry. If you feel compelled to form your political opinions based on chain letters, please research them first! And no matter what you decide to believe, don't pass them on to others---especially me! Break the Chain is an excellent place to read about the current ones, and so is Urban Legends Reference Page.

Couldn't Resist

A Little Blue

It's a weird hazy day---kind of still and humid and heavy. Think we're feeling that gorgeous monster of a hurricane moving towards us? She's a beauty, and she's scary. Mom's freaking out a little---sounds like everybody in central Florida is.

I've finally poured boiling honey-water over all my berries, and it smells heavenly. It smells like summer and flowers and first love and a newborn baby. Well, maybe that's a little over the top, but it does smell really really good. I'll add some wine yeast to it, probably tomorrow morning. I wish I had some champagne yeast, but I don't, and I don't think I'm going to be in Asheville in the next couple of days. By the way, I weighed the berries this morning and I had 5 lbs of elderberries and 3&1/2 lbs of blackberries and blueberries mixed. I added one quart of honey diluted and boiled with three quarts of water, and tomorrow night I hope to be able to add another two quarts of boiled honey; I'm aiming for three gallons of mead. Boy it smells good.

DH and the girls are in town and will be going to a party this evening, so I may have a fair bit of quiet ahead of me tonight. I feel a little melancholy, but in a good way; do you know what I mean? Like it feels OK to be a little blue.